Cellulosic fibrous structures are a staple of everyday life. Cellulosic fibrous structures are used as consumer products for paper towels, toilet tissue, facial tissue, napkins, and the like. The large demand for such paper products has created a demand for improved versions of the products and the methods of their manufacture.
Consumers prefer cellulosic fibrous structure products having multiple attributes. These attributes include softness, absorbency, strength, flexibility, and bulk. Consumers may especially prefer fibrous structure products having improved softness. Softness is the pleasing tactile sensation consumers perceive when they handle the product in their hands and while using the paper for its intended purpose. Consumers also desire products that will be useful for a broad variety of cleaning tasks including any type of surface from the cleaning of floors, countertops, drying dishes to the cleaning of faces, hands, arms, etc. Softness is generally a function of the compressibility of the paper, the flexibility of the paper, and the surface smoothness. These attributes may communicate to the consumer that the product will be versatile and that the product will be useful for a variety of cleaning tasks and surfaces.
Usually, however, the improvement of one attribute, may compromise the quality of another attribute. For example, increasing the softness of the fibrous structure product may decrease the absorbency, strength, and/or bulk of the product. Therefore, providing a product with improved softness and therefore an improved impression of product versatility without sacrificing the strength, bulk, and/or absorbency of the product is difficult.
Hence, the present invention unexpectedly provides an aesthetically pleasing soft and flexible tissue/towel product while also providing strength, bulk, and/or absorbency. The present invention provides a fibrous structure that exhibits a particular Flex Modulus, basis weight, and Compression Slope relationship, as described herein, which unexpectedly provides a product with enhanced softness without sacrificing strength, bulk, and/or absorbency attributes.